


Suptober Day 28: Hellscape

by tiamatv



Series: Promptober 2020 [27]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Choices, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Introspection, M/M, POV Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27254233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/pseuds/tiamatv
Summary: Dean just doesn’t know how the fuck he ended up here this time, looking at the results of his own choices and with no goddamned way out.“I could go with you,” Cas says, softly.He's said that before.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Promptober 2020 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954990
Comments: 29
Kudos: 136





	Suptober Day 28: Hellscape

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, friends, I'm lacking sleep and then I got some awful news this evening... so you get a short, angsty, sort of weird 'fic for today. I promise it ends well, though!

Dean Winchester has been to Hell—yeah, actual literal Hell, H-E-double-hockey-sticks, _that_ one—more times than any one being, human or otherwise, should be in their lifetime. He was friends—sort of—with the King of it. He is friends—sort of—with the Queen of it. He shot Lucifer himself in the face—didn’t stick—and stabbed him in the fucking _chest—that_ one stuck. He knows the rack and the wires, the demons in their suits, their endless DMV lines. Hell isn’t like Heaven, it’s not what the soul makes of it: Hell is just… Hell.

So maybe for some people Hell _is_ about fear, but not for Dean.

It’s not that he doesn’t get scared—he’s been scared out of his fucking mind, one big angry reflex from head to toe, so often that Dean’s lost count.

That’s kind of the point.

It’s that Dean’s body knows exactly what to do about fear. Even when his mind’s a white-out of pain and fury and terror, Dean’s fucking _good_ in a crisis. He’s been beaten and bloody and kept walking. He’s _died_ and kept walking. How many assholes out there can say that? Yeah, uh-huh. He can. Werewolf fangs? Got your silver right here. Ghost? Crowbar. Witch? Witch-killing bullet.

(He still fucking hates witches the worst, though, not gonna lie.)

But looking at what’s right here in front of him—what’s waiting for him?

He hates this even worse than Hell.

Dean doesn’t _know_ this. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him if he does this—if he’s going to be the same after. He doesn’t _want_ to do this.

This is not knowing if driving needles into Sammy’s brain is going to make him better or make him dead. This is watching someone put a bomb into his chest or raising his hand with a syringe in it, Alastair grinning at him from the circle and the chains. It’s not a split second. It’s not prayer, it’s not a gun, it’s not bright blood and brighter adrenaline. It’s Dean having to make choices, not just _react_.

That’s what torture’s about, for him, or at least it is now. ‘Cause Dean’s _not_ scared of pain anymore. It’s not that he thinks it can’t break him; he knows it can, and it has. Thirty years under the lash, and then the whip was in his hand. He’s not proud of it, but, after all this time, he’s not ashamed of it, either. Everyone’s got their breaking point, and that was his.

That’s how they got him then, but Dean’s older. He’s not any wiser, but the world’s slammed him hard, and he’s lost so _much._ He knows that there’s so fucking much that’s _worse_ than just… pain.

He just doesn’t know how the fuck he ended up here this time, looking at the results of his own choices and with no goddamned way out.

Sam wanted to come. Sam wanted to walk him here, ‘cause Sam is Dean’s little brother to the end—but Sam doesn’t get it, and he never will. So Sam’s back with Baby, ‘cause Sam’s a good brother like that, too.

Sam _thinks_. That’s what Sam does. It’s when _Dean_ lets himself think about shit that he starts getting himself into trouble, doesn’t everyone know that?

“I could go with you,” Cas says, softly. His hand is firm on Dean’s shoulder. Dean doesn’t remember him putting it there.

Goddamned angel _wouldn’t_ stay behind in the car, though, not this time. Cas doesn’t get it any more than Sam does, Dean knows that, but it’s not the same, somehow. It doesn’t mean the same thing to an eternal pillar of light who remembers humans learning about coffee from goats, he’d guess.

Dean fucking _hates_ to admit how comforting it is, with Cas standing too close to him. Cas’s elbow brushes his. It’s so hot, and just looking at Cas in his everyday gear—his trench coat, his tie, his suit—makes the back of Dean’s neck sweat.

The air out here is so fucking hot, but looking at where he has to go, everything is sharp and cold and dry and artificial. They made sure of that. He thinks they always do.

Dean’s mouth curls, sour. He wants to make a joke about it—flash his pretty smile, all balls and sass, tell Cas, “Hey, this is easy, right?” Maybe say that it’s like purgatory, where the air was always the right temperature and it was never too humid or too dry because those discomforts just didn’t matter—the lights were never too bright, the night never too dark.

But it’s _not_ familiar. It’s nothing like Purgatory, the real Purgatory, because a world populated by monsters that Dean knows how to kill is a world that is pure and impossible, and Dean had a goal, then. He didn’t have to sleep or eat, piss or shit. He had _people._ He had a portal to climb through, a weird friend with too many teeth to save, an angel to find no matter how fucking stubborn the idiot was being, with his dirty trench coat and his peach fuzz.

Dean could kill until his mind went white, and there wasn’t any judgment in it, because that was everything that there was. He didn’t have to _think_.

He knew Purgatory. They both did. They both _do_.

In Purgatory, the monsters were scared of _Dean_.

Dean shakes his head. He forces the corner of his mouth to push upwards. “Y’know, I feel like you’ve maybe said that before, Cas.”

Cas doesn’t smile back, and his blue eyes are quiet, so serious. The fingers on Dean’s shoulder tighten before they loosen just enough that Dean knows Cas did it intentionally.

Cas is an angel; like he says, he doesn’t forget shit. He’d know that—he probably remembers what Dean was wearing that day, how Dean smelled of sweat and resignation, the way those souls in the bomb felt gathered bright and hot underneath Dean’s breastbone.

Neither of them exactly needs yet another reminder of one of the many times that Dean’s walked willingly into certain fucking disaster.

“Yes. But that’s the nature of doing things more than once,” Cas says, his head falling gently to the side. “It doesn’t have to be the same every time. If you want me with you—I will go with you.”

Shit, they’ve been through a lot together.

Dean scoffs, and that almost feels normal. “Too damned late for that, this time, buddy.”

This time, Cas does smile—very small, an aching little curve of lips, that tempting divot in the upper one that Dean’s thought of pressing his thumb to too many times.

Why hasn’t he done that, again? Looking at what’s in front of him now, Dean can’t remember.

“I think…” Cas says, and Dean realizes that he might be leaning in. He straightens, jerking just a little back. His spine twangs with alarm, but Cas doesn’t seem to notice that Dean almost faceplanted right into his, well, face. But maybe it’s because he’s looking so deep into Dean’s eyes, ‘cause, well… Cas.

Dean doesn’t look away, though.

“I think that if I’ve learned something from you and from Sam, Dean Winchester,” Cas continues, gently, “It is that it is never too late.”

He’s right, of course.

Damn him, anyway.

But Dean’s got to do this one alone. That’s the whole fucking point. They both know that.

Dean turns away from Cas’s stare. He looks up, and in, and almost steps back. They’re smiling. _Laughing_ , some of them. Their expressions are sharp with anticipation and familiarity, and their eyes twinkle at him, flat and bright. Maybe they’re waiting for him. One stares, and then another. Teeth flash yellow, white, threatening. They’re ready, and they’re hungry, and the light is so harsh and bright that there are no shadows. _Nothing_ about this is familiar.

Dean’s pretty sure he’d be sick if he didn’t refuse to eat anything this morning. The coffee that was all he could stomach is sour and bitter at the back of his throat.

They couldn’t have made a better Hell for Dean if they’d tried, because he has to walk _himself_ into this one.

“I will be here,” Cas says, like it’s a certainty that Dean’s gonna come out of this in one piece and without his mind broken and shattered, “when you come back.”

“Yeah. You always are,” Dean says, with a quiet, bitter laugh.

Cas’s hand slides from his shoulder and down his arm, his skin catching on Dean’s rough red flannel. But he keeps going. Dean sucks in a soft breath as fingers curl around his hand. He _forgets_ to breathe as a callused thumb strokes the middle of his palm. When he turns with a “What?” curling tender on his tongue, Cas is way, _way_ in his personal space.

Cas curves in and kisses him. Very softly, just on the corner of Dean’s mouth. His lips are a dry, plush scrape.

It’s very quiet. It’s _very_ fucking chaste. Dean’s staring down at him, open-mouthed, when Cas pulls back.

Somewhere in the last two seconds, the dread digging heavy as grave dirt into Dean’s stomach became something else.

The line between dread and anticipation is pretty damned fine, too, it turns out.

“I always will be,” Cas says, and brushes a fingertip against the bob of Dean’s lower lip before he nudges his sagging chin back up with a knuckle. “I am proud of you. Now go.”

Someone, just inside the door, whistles cheerfully at them.

Dean snorts, very softly.

Then Dean takes a deep breath, turns away from the goddamned angel that just fucking _kissed_ him for the first time right in front of some thirty freshman kids, and steps into the Kansas City College classroom.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Told you I'd give you a happy ending, didn't I? :) 
> 
> I know, I know--Dean's so dramatic. But if I were him, I'd be freaking out a little, too!


End file.
